Susan Nelson

Prioritizing People in the C-Suite

Over 20 years in HR management, coaching, and facilitating teams

Passionate about showing emerging HR leaders how to increase their impact, confidence and results so they can thrive at work and at home

Designs and facilitates interactive group events, harnessing the wisdom of the group, to support meaningful connection and learning

Adept at guiding leaders in managing during rapid growth and change

Susan Nelson is the founder and Chief People Strategist of HR Leaders Coach. She is passionate about helping leaders of start-ups and small-to-mid sized businesses (SMBs) understand, build, and leverage the power of a people-first organization as a key differentiator for their business.

With over 25 years of HR experience in Silicon Valley working with global technology organizations and leaders, she shows both C-suite executives and People team leaders how to invest in and develop a strong, trusted partnership that drives more strategic conversations, prioritizes people, and forms the basis for a thriving company culture that attracts and retains the best and brightest minds in their industry.

She has worked with a wide variety of tech companies, from start-ups to mid-sized, private equity to public companies, including C-Cube Microsystems, LSI Logic, Portal Software, Brocade, NetApp, NVIDIA, CipherCloud, Nimble Storage, 24/7.ai, Veritas, and Sysdig.

As an integrative leadership coach, Susan also helps HR leaders to excel in the C-Suite and at home by showing them how to reclaim their power by boosting their confidence, elevating their role and the people function in their organization, and making it ok to be human at work. 

As an advisor and facilitator, she guides organizations and leaders in designing and leading meaningful team/group events that support connection, learning, and growth, particularly during times of rapid change.

Susan is able to quickly assess an organization's most critical needs and will meet the business where they are. She works collaboratively with her clients, empowering them with the necessary data, insight and influence, as a trusted advisor, to make informed business decisions and develop lasting global and enterprise-wide solutions. She easily spans the entire leadership spectrum, building relationships and credibility quickly. 
 
Susan holds her undergraduate degree in Business Administration from San Jose State University and her MBA from Santa Clara University. She is also a member of the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) and is certified as a Sr. Professional in HR (SPHR) and a SHRM Sr. Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP).

Susan lives with her husband and two children in San Jose, CA. When she's not busy shuttling kids to/from their activities, she enjoys supporting educators in their wellness, reading, live streaming her favorite shows, working out, and road cycling with friends.

“Susan is able to apply her strong communication, organization and analytical skills to any project (or client) making her successful in driving for results.”
~ Colleen Blake, Sr. Director, Global People Operations, Brocade

ALL Testimonials

Paul Whitney - VP of HR, Nimble Storage
“I worked with Susan at Nimble Storage where she owned a series of projects around culture, engagement and infrastructure. Susan is one of the most capable HR professionals I have ever had the pleasure to work with. She is really smart, super well organized, has great judgment and delivered high quality outputs on every project she owned. I would welcome the chance to work with Susan again at any time and highly recommend her to anyone looking to add high value consulting support. She is awesome!”


Jean Heller - Sr. OD Consultant, NetApp
“I had the pleasure of working with Susan on a number of HR and OD initiatives for the Product Operations team at NetApp, including rollout of a formal talent review process and a culture change initiative. I found her to be a deeply skilled and versatile HR professional, with an extremely strong business/strategic mindset and very strong OD and Change Management skills. Susan's executive and leader level clients relied heavily on Susan for her deep insights about talent, her pragmatic approach to complex change work and her principled approach to doing the right thing for the business. Susan is extremely collaborative, engaging leaders at all levels as well as cross-functional HR partners. She is passionate about talent development, and helping her clients through complex changes. I look forward to working with Susan again on HR, OD or Change efforts and highly recommend her to others looking for outstanding support in the Human Capital space."
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Colleen Blake - Sr. Director, Global People Operations, Brocade
“Susan is a valued member of the HR team and has been a great contributor to various projects inside and outside of her HR Business Partner role. Susan is able to apply her strong communication, organization and analytical skills to any project (or client group) making her successful in driving for results. It was a pleasure working with her on the Foundry Networks Integration where she wrangled in all the moving parts of our communications plan to ensure owners knew what they were responsible for, cross-collaboration was occurring, content creation was complete and communications were being delivered on time. Susan's can-do attitude makes it enjoyable to partner with her and I look forward to teaming up with Susan again on future opportunities."